hmm... I think we might finally see another true resurgance from the "indy" markets... I am not going to quote various news and such, but there seems to be a general industry-wide trend of layoffs and project killing... and those companies which are not doing that seem to be sticking with ultra-conservative formulaic games. I know there are exceptions, but this is my current opinion of it all. A lot of the big companies are slimming down and taking no chances.

So... that gives someone small who takes the chance and the iniative to actually do something, IMHO

Tragic, what a sorry way to repay your dev team after all the hours they burned. Unfortunately, for game dev, that seems to be par for the course lately.

I hope they keep the game up but I don't count on Sierra to do so. I think the franchise is dead. Sierra won't sell it but they also almost certainly will do nothing with it. Its terrible, Tribes is a great game.

Rykard, I hope your right. This abuse should not be happening to some of the most talented people the computer industry has.

Sieggy

Edited by - Sieggy on August 10, 2001 1:58:09 PM

I wanna puke ... Vivendi is a freaking French company...
what kind of country am I living in
The only glad thought I have is when I think of those bastards who had to pay several millions $ to get their domain name back from a French senegal(ese ?) refugee

Fuck that

I''d be a tad nervous if I were Valve right now. TF2 coming out anytime soon?

I agree that this team-killing thing isn''t a good trend, both for aspiring developers and current developers alike. I also agree and am somewhat perplexed as to why all these great games companies are being shut down. Looking Glass, Origin, Dynamix... In his recent column in Computer Gaming World, Tom L. McDonald poked EA full of holes for killing Origin and giving this huge space combat game to Westwood, when Origin had Andy Hollis (a great sim designer) and buttloads more experience in the matter. I question the sanity and IQ levels of these publishers and parent companies.

==============================
"Need more eeenput..."
- #5, "Short Circuit"
==============================

You know, it is shit like this that makes me not want to get a real job in this industry. >

This crap is the main reason why I''ll only ever be doing games as a hobbie. Maybe have my real job as a Webmaster, Software Engineer, Librarian, etc. (Let me just note, that as a Librarian, I would do everything in my power to get my library REAL computer books, not just what seems to be "Microsoft Office for Beginners," or "Your First Computer Book"). That way I am unhindered in my vision (However there may be limitations in the Tools I can use).

I prefer to have an artistic element to my game... The main thing that I am afraid of, for getting an Industry Job, is that I would be forced into a project such as "Quake IX, the Unsuspected Return of the Aliens."

I guess my main goal of the computer industry, is to become "The ShakeSpear of Video Games." (Or perhaps I am aiming too low.)

--------------------------------------------------
Bow Down before Daytanea the Computer Goddess of AI,
lest she reboot your bios to her liking

It''s unfortunate, but most people at the top level in these companies have little idea about the actual games and how they work, just how to make money. The industry is very much different to most others, yet the suits are trying to bring it inline.

I''ve had direct experiance with publishers, where the people who know anything about the games (the buyers), will usually be supportive of a good project, then the money-men come along and it all goes to pot.

I guess as the publishers get bigger, they are much less likely to take risks, maybe in the case of Origin, Westwood allow themselves to be more controlled by EA?


Still, it''s not all doom and gloom, the industry is picking up again and maybe the new Nintendo machine will spark a bit of diversity again (allowing for publishers to again take a few risks)





Marc Lambert

marc@darkhex.com

DakeDesu:

I totally agree. I write busines code by day and while its a good job and I get to do pretty neat things I have always wanted to do game dev. But who wants to work 80 hours a week at half the salary you would make in the business world just so you can get fired without notice on Thursday at lunch? I''m glad I never went into the industry for those reasons. I feel for those guys a Dynamix.

Sieggy

My dream life would be Game Programmer disguised as a bussiness app coder . (every App I make would have a game hidden in it somewhere.)

Oh no! Will Hood_Rat stumble onto something more evil than Solitair, thus sending the whole world into resestion, because they are playing the games in Hood_Rat''s Business Apps, instead of working!

(* Does the Home Alone "Oh No!" Face TM*)

Watakashi wa KANADAJIN IMASU!!!

Dake Desu!Com (Just wait until I get a new graphic.)

Whoo boy, sometimes these topics just tend to jump right out and grab you by the shoulder blades. No way I''m dodging this bullet... where''s my lightsaber? :D

****

The computer science industry as a whole right now is looking pretty under the weather. Definitely not encouraging to someone about to graduate in a few weeks with a bachelor''s CS degree. Definitely not encouraging when big companies are laying off employees by the thousand.

Like a lot of people already responding to this thread, breaking into the computer game industry seems to be becoming more and more of a pipe dream to me, more and more like some weird dream with little chance of being real. I mean, some of the requirements for just getting a job as a level designer are almost unreal (7 years of design experience... ). That, and most of us already know how viscerally competitive the arena can be.

But I also believe that right now, even in the gaming industry, the current conditions are going to weed out people that don''t want to be there and strengthen the people that really want to play hardball.

I do agree that eventually, people are going to get so fed up with the situations in the market and the lack of originality (or what they are seeking) that they will roll up their sleeves and do it themselves.

Descent was a brave step for Parallax. I mean - a first person spaceship action game where you fight robots? Who would go for something new like that? A lot of people like me, apparently. And let''s not forget Deer Hunter - the computer game some people probably thought wouldn''t fly - and then proceeded to become a sleeper bestseller, spawning a respectable number of copies (and we thought DOOM had popularity with all the copies it inspired).

I would agree with post-mortem analyses of bad business decisions fueled by money - who can forget the popular rush-to-release-for-the-holidays mistakes committed? But at the same time (and typing slowly due to hurting hands), it reminds me of the power that I hold as a consumer. I''m the dude paying the money to play the game.

There is a possibility that there could be a return to garage programming, kinda like a redefinition of the field. Would be really cool if it did.

Enough talk... time for some action.

-slippers2k

slippers2k, while the general industry is down if you have a good foundation and skill in such things as Java and C++ you should be okay. If you know only HTML then things will be a bit rougher.

The game industry has, of late, seemed pretty tough. There is no doubt a labor of love thing going on. No one would stick with the long hours and generally pathetic pay if they didn''t love it. I hope the "garge game" idea picks up, there is certainly a lot of good stuff out there with tons of dedicated folks but my understanding is that distribution is really hard to get into. The internet could be a solution but most folks are still going through older modems making anything above a few meg to long a wait. I really do hope something works out though - things aren''t looking too rosy for gaming right now.

I''ve heard some things left and right that made me think that perhaps Vivendi wasn''t as wrong in dumping Dynamix as it seems. But still, it''s not a good climate to be in.

However, some design principles are finally filtering through into the game industry. Look at 3D Realms... the underhype of the decade award goes to them. Max Payne released to almost unanimously positive reviews, and still not a PEEP out of the Duke Nukem Forever team (even the .plan updates are several years old). These guys know that in order to do something right, time has to be taken, and you can''t overhype it in advance...


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.
Check out my band, 22 Strings to Break here.

MadKeithV what exactly did you hear? I know Tribes2 did not get the best of reviews and had lukewarm sales but there is a lot of potential on the franchise. Bear in mind of course, being a regular player that I''m a tad biased. It does have a strong following and rather addictive gameplay. Given that there are a lot of possibilites for it and again its not like the current version is terrible - its still lots of fun, its just not the massive leap it was hyped to be. Anyhow, the thing that will most likely happen is that Sierra/Vivendi will lock the franchise up and do nothing with it. That along with the loss of the team is sad since it still is a good game with a lot of future potential. Now we will almost certainly never see anymore Tribes.

In 1998 I predicted that my life would change somehow in the year 2002. It was because of a dream... a dream brought on by reading too many Fantasy Novels.

Anyways without going into details with the dream, and basically the way things are going in 2001, I am starting to get scared...

1) Anybody remember the great video game crash of (I believe it was) 1983? History has a funny way of repeating itself.

2) You know back in the dot com "boom," the VCs started funding anything with the words "dot com" in it. You could prolly make a site about mating with fish and just include a couple buzz words, and make a cover letter (What, only wussies use a business plan [/sarcasm]), and you''d get millions upon millions in funding, until the "Old-New-Economy" crash

3) Okay Hardware is insanely fast using up to (within the next five years) 2.3 GHz, Holographic HardDisk, Insanely fast Graphics Cards, *REALLY* cheap RAM, etc., etc. However without any programmer really using anything more than 1.3 GHz in the next little while, Tech stocks are going down... fast... cause there is no real reason to upgrade the baise box.

-------------------------------

Now since the second two happened, and trouble usually comes in threes, I am afraid the first one may happen as well... due to lack of spending on new revolutionary ideas...

-----------------------------

Wow, this is the first time that two messages in a row have got me feeling kind of meloncholy...

Watakashi wa KANADAJIN IMASU!!!

Dake Desu!Com (Just wait until I get a new graphic.)

quote:

---

-------------------------------

Now since the second two happened, and trouble usually comes in threes, I am afraid the first one may happen as well... due to lack of spending on new revolutionary ideas...

-----------------------------

---

This is why I really want Nintendo to win this latest round of the battle, as they along with Sega have always been the ones who do invest in new and fresh idea''s.

However, it does need a much deeper change to happen within the industry to avoid the crash. I do think your timing is off though, if anything next year will be huge with the new consoles launched, the year after may be the crash (once everyone wakes up and realizes Fifa 2003 is crap after all)


Oh well, the best we can do is start only buying the decent games and also strive to make the new fresh games!




Marc Lambert

marc@darkhex.com

Intersting and DakeDesu makes some good points. These days its really hard to make a decent profit from games. While the PC is this incredible and open platform which gives us massive technical leaps each year its a two edged sword. The blow me away graphics of today is "old" compared to the blow me away graphics of a year - sometimes even 6 months - from now. We have driven ourselves into a cycle where shelf life is non existant and games are increasingly difficult to make. How we make it out from this I don''t know.

I hope PCs make it though. I never got into the console thing since they always seem more arcadish and less strategy and thinking. The lines are more blurred today but PC games on average do seem a bit more cerebral. Plus, I hate the anime thing!

Anyhow, I''ve tried to remain optimistic through this whole thing but things are looking very dark...very dark indeed.

I think the problem is that many of these companies produce excellent games which appeal to the hardcore gamers, who simply arent a large enough demographic to please the publishers. Why would a publisher spend 2m over 2 - 3 years on a game which will barely cover its costs, when they can spend a fraction of the time and money and roll out a half arsed piece of shit which appeals to the mass market. Games like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, which would bore most of us to tears in about 5 minutes, (in fact, most of us could probably write the engine in about 5 minutes) but sold more copies than anything else this year.

The same factors present at the great crash of ''83 are back . There are just too many games with the same game play . In 83 , the crash was because every Tom , Dick or Harry who could program was trying to make a game and release it . It came to a point were the market was so saturated , you could not pick a good game from the rest of the trash .(I was alive back then) .

It makes my stomach turn when I look at the state of the industry . Too many gaming companies/publishers competing for non existant shelf space. Cant even blame them when they publish clones because its the price of failure is too high . In the end , even the good games are not going to sell .

Its inevitable , the market is going to crash for at least five years or so . I dont know whats going to revive it after that.

On a side not , even the most popular games are begining to get weary. Deus Ex (my favourite game of all times) has a lot of flaws , I almost uninstalled it . Imagine , the grunts cant open doors . They chase you , you run , open a door , get in and close it . after a while their states return to normal . Imagine in real life , I just shot a guy , he is bleeding all over the fucken place .He looks for me cant find me then shrugs and starts patrolling again . Or worse , he runs into a corner , and keeps running . i just walk there and blast his head off . Im even hesitating to buy Max Payne coz Im sure if I get disappointed Im never buying another game.